How a Guantanamo prison guard discovered Islam

France 24April 14, 2009

As a guard in Guantanamo Bay, Terry Holdbrooks was charged with keeping
a careful watch on detainees in the infamous detention center. But
after a series of extraordinary interactions between the former US Army
specialist and Muslim detainees at the center, the Phoenix,
Arizona-born prison guard decided to convert to Islam.

During his service at Guantanamo, Holdbrooks says the detainees were
often subjected to sadistic, degrading treatment by interrogators.

In an interview with FRANCE 24’s Guillaume Meyer, the former prison
guard rattled off a list of sometimes brutal, often humiliating
situations the detainees were subjected to. “Detainees were punched,
kicked, knee-butted, things like that would occur,” he said. “Detainees
would be doused in cold water…be subjected to very loud
music…investigators would come in and sometimes rough up a detainee…”

Through it all, Holdbrooks said, a number of detainees continued to
practice their faith. And that left an indelible mark on the US prison
guard. “Seeing people who were practicing Muslims, practicing Islam in
a horrible place like that…it was an interesting experience for me to
see somebody take their faith so seriously, so devoutly,” he told
FRANCE 24.

‘Wrong place at the wrong time’

While prison guards often develop a hostile relationship with
detainees, there have been recent cases of former Guantanamo guards
developing sympathetic relations with the detainees.

According to Holdbrooks, it was easy to differentiate between those
who had “ill will toward the US” and those who were simply “at the
wrong place at the wrong time”.

“I can think back to an old man and a child,” recalled Holdbrooks.
“I don’t think they knew of a world outside Afghanistan. I don’t think
they knew there were oceans or that the world was round or that there
was the Internet, computers or cell phones or any of these things. They
just knew their village. How can somebody like that be a co-conspirator
of the 9/11 attacks?” he asked.

Holdbrooks himself has had a troubled history of substance
addiction, according to media reports. Following his conversion to
Islam at Guantanamo, Holdbrooks was honourably discharged from service.
No reasons were supplied for his release from the military two years
before the end of his commitment.

When he returned home to Phoenix, Holdbrooks took to heavy drinking
and a cocaine addiction, he told the French daily Le Figaro, before his
serious addiction problem landed him in hospital. This time, it was a
local imam at a Phoenix mosque that led him back to Islam.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to close the infamous prison by
January 2010 and has established a multi-agency task force to review
detainee policy.

But defense attorneys have criticized the US administration for
dragging their feet over the cases of some 240 current detainees who
were allowed to take their cases to federal courts following a US
Supreme Court ruling last year.